'Way' back, 'Way' back ...

Tomorrow's Cougars media day story dives into "The Cubs Way" – the organizational blueprint introduced by Cubs president Theo Epstein in fall 2011 – and how Cougars players and coaches incorporate it into their approaches.

Here are a few additional thoughts that were not included in the paper. "The Cubs Way", it should be noted, has a broad scope, although left-hander Brian Smith gave a pretty solid Cliffs Notes version about its competitive nature: "Basically play hard, get wins that's about it."

Manager Mark Johnson was more verbose:

"A lot of our big prospects are here, and [there's] a lot of really young, good talent at the lower two levels," he said. "So the new way, The Cubs Way, is going to be instilled with these kids from day one and, you know, it really starts here. And it starts in Arizona in the Rookie League, just putting it together and getting it on a daily basis. Putting it in their heads and it's the right way to play the game, the right way to go about their business."

"They just incorporate it in every drill we did during practice and just talked about it over and over," outfielder Trey Martin added.

Stay tuned to this space tomorrow for more tidbits as Thursday's opening night game against Quad Cities nears.